Pediatricians “absolutely concerned” as COVID-19 cases almost double in children

The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics is dissatisfied with vaccination rates among young people and said doctors are “absolutely concerned” about the increase in cases of COVID-19 among adolescents.

Speaking at an August 4 webinar hosted by the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project, Dr Lee Savio Beers said that with the rise of the delta variant, pediatric cases of COVID-19 nearly doubled by week to week.

“We hear from our pediatricians who see patients in their offices and in their hospitals, that they see a lot of very sick children. So we are absolutely concerned, ”Beers said.

Beers is also a professor of pediatrics and medical director of community health and advocacy at the National Children’s Hospital.

She said about 27% of 12 to 15 year olds are fully immunized and about 39% of 16 to 17 year olds are immune.

“Getting our teens vaccinated against COVID-19 is really more important than ever. It is a safe and effective vaccine. And that’s important, ”she said.

Dispel myths without repeating them. Dr. Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said people who are hesitant about vaccines should have all their questions answered respectfully.

Beers notes that many teens tend to react less to messages about their own health. What is really important to them is how being vaccinated helps protect others and their community.

“For parents, in fact, they want to hear that their children are going to be protected, but for the teenager, they care about protecting their community. And it is also important for us to remind ourselves that young children are not yet eligible for the vaccine, so when eligible adults and adolescents are vaccinated, we are also helping to protect our toddlers, ”she said.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading national infectious disease expert who also attended the webinar, as part of a pre-recorded segment, said there are a number of reasons parents should get their children immunized as soon as they are ‘they become eligible.

“You don’t want a child who might be infected and have no symptoms – because very often children are infected, they have no symptoms – and then inadvertently and innocently bring him home to grandparents who could be elderly, who may have an underlying disease, or a family member who may be on cancer chemotherapy. So you don’t want the infection to spread and you don’t want the child, himself, to get sick, ”said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of. Health and Chief Medical Advisor on COVID. -19 to President Joe Biden.

Fauci has expressed concern over the lingering effects of COVID-19.

“We are now seeing that a substantial proportion of people who are infected, even if they have mild symptoms, can have what is called a long COVID, which is the persistence of the symptomatology, often measured over several months,” he said. -he declares.

Fauci added: “Then you find that in fact, when you eliminate the virus, you can have a profound persistence of fatigue that interferes with your function – muscle pain, temperature imbalance, trouble sleeping and something that people call the brain fog, or the inability to concentrate or concentrate normally.